That may be true of many people. But I came from a family in which everyone was a Democrat. I voted solely for Democrats until my mid-50s. What’s more, I never even THOUGHT of voting for anything but Democrats till then. Had you told me prior to that that I would change parties in my mid-50s, I would have thought you a lunatic. That’s how certain I was.

Linda S Fox:

Quite so.

Yet this seems mysterious to many cradle conservatives, who are living out their version of that syllogism.

I was born into a family of beatniks. The first time I smoked pot was at 16 with my mother and uncle.

Guess what my politics were for most of my life.

Guess what happened when I became conservative.

It will merit some thought.

I was always amazed by the differences between my two brothers and me. Same parents, same house, same schools, same teachers, even a lot of common friends, and yet we were so very different in our personality types. If nurture was a major factor, wouldn’t we have been more alike? When I read Pinker’s book, it seemed to answer the questions I had.

It’s true that without variations in personalities, it would be a rather stagnant world. We’d all be Starbelly Seeches and that would be that. 🙂

We have two female cats. They both came from the same litter and have the same coloring. But boy are their personalities different. More evidence of how personalities are inherited, not created by nurturing.

I have no doubt that nurturing has a big effect on how a personality type evolves and learns to navigate the world, but the basic “big five” personality traits people inherit don’t change that much.

I’ll respond to your question by asking three of my own. How have Jews voted in past elections? How have Jews traditionally categorized themselves in the political sense — as politically liberal or politically (not theologically) conservative? What has traditionally been the ratio of Democrat to Republican Jews?

For what’s it’s worth, in my personal experience the many Jews I have known have voted Democrat and categorized themselves as liberals.

I see.

You might be correct, but on what are you basing your opinion? I’ve seen polls that say otherwise. For example:

Pennsylvania, a state where Biden mustered an 81,000-vote victory in 2020, is the swing state with the most Jewish voters: nearly 434,000. . . . A poll commissioned by the Orthodox Union released August 2 showed a startling result: Pennsylvania’s Jewish vote was closely split 49 percent to 42 percent between Harris and Trump—a departure from the Democrats’ historical hold on Jewish voters.

Most polls have very few Jews and are unreliable, but this one sounds like it focused on the Jewish vote, at least in Pennsylvania.

I see little change coming and expect close to 70% of American Jews voting for Harris . . .

This is what I agree with.

Read my comment above this one.